James ii



(No Model.)

J. H. ROGERS.

APPARATUS FOR TELEPHONIO COMMUNICATION.

No. 288,866. Patented Nov. 13, 1883.

Jay

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

JAMES H. ROGERS, OE IVASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, ASSIGNOR, BY MESNE ASSIGNMENTS, TO THE AMERICAN ELEOTR-O GAS TELEPHONE COMPANY, OF NEW JERSEY.

APPARATUS FOR TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 288,366, dated November 13, 1883.

Application filed November 8,1880. (No model.)

T (LZZ whom, it may concern Be it known that I, Janus IIARRIS Rocnns, a citizen of the United States, residing at Vashington, in the District of Columbia, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Apparatus for Telephonic Communication, of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates to means and appliances for the transmission of sound-wavcs through gas-pipes for the purpose of communicating speech from one part of a building to another, and also to suitable appliances for conveying impulses through gas-pipes to produce call-signals without permitting the es- I 5 cape of gas.

The invention is designed, chiefly, for domestic purposes, to be used in lieu of speakingtubes, electric bells, annunciators, and so forth, by the employment of the gas-pipes of buildings as a means of communicating audible and intelligible sounds, so that every apartment in a house to which the gas-pipes extend may be signaled, and a person in one apartment may speak to another in any other apartment. It is applicable to dwellings, hotels. business houses, and public and other buildings of any size.

My invention relates to that form of telephonic apparatus in which vibratory diaphragms of thin metal or other material are stretched or placed across suitable openings in communication with the gas-pipes, and so sealed or packed as to prevent the escape of gas to any material extent, so that vibrations produced by the voice on one of such membranes may be transmitted through the gas in the pipes to a similar membrane applied to another aperture in connection with said pipes in a different part of the building. Any convenient prolongations of the pipes are used, suitably shaped at their terminations to adapt them for application to the mouth and ear of persons using them for speaking and hearing.

My invention consists, first, in the provision of flexible or movable pipes connecting the transmitting and receiving instruments with the gas-pipes to render the said instruments more convenient to handle; and, sec ondly, in the combination, with the gas-pipes,

of a hell or whistle or other call-signal to be actuated by an impulse or vibration conveyed through the gas in the pipes and transmitted through a liquid trap, the liquid serving to transmit sufticient movement to the air be yond to sound the whistle or work any mechanical contrivance employed to ring a bell, while at the same time preventing the escape of gas.

In the accompanying drawings, Figure 1 is a sectional view illustrating two stations or in- 6Q struments connected by gas-pipes and adapted for use in different apartments, and branch pipes which may communicate with similar instruments in other apartments. Fig. 2 is a sectional view of a modification in the con- 6 5 struotion of the call-signal, in which the liquid in the trap acts on a bell-hammer through the medium of a float, as hereinafter described.

N N represent mouth and ear pieces, which may be of any suitable and convenient form, 0 and M M diaphragms of thin metal or other elastic material stretched or applied across the mouths or openings thereof, so as to transmit or receive sound-waves.

G G represent the gas-pipes, and T T the 7 5 hollow stems of the transmitting and receiving instruments, connected through flexible tubes I I with the gas-pipes G G", so that the gas in said pipes will be in contact with the inner surfaces of the membranes M M. The flexible pipes I I render the transmitting and receiving instruments convenient to handle.

Call-whistles such as are commonly used in the mouth-pieces of speaking-tubes are placed at IV V, and liquid traps at X X, to prevent the escape of gas through the same.

In Fig. 2 I have shown as a modification a float, V, resting on the liquid in the trap, and supporting a rod, Y, provided with a hammer, y, which by an impulse imparted to the 0 liquid in the trap by pressure in the gas-pipe will be made to strike the bell Z. As speaking-tubes are commonly provided with mouthpieees containing call-whistles to be sounded by a blast of air produced through a similar 5 mouth-piece at a distant point, and such 1nouth-pieces and call-whistles are perfectly applicable to the carrying out of the second 2 2ss,36o

part of my invention, no representation or 1o rarily out of equilibrium, producing pressure in the gas-pipe G, which pressure will be transmitted to the liquid in the trap X at the other station, throwing the liquid therein temporarily out of equilibrium and driving a blast of I 5 air through the whistle 'W.

enough to drive the liquid completely out of and beyond the trap-bends would result in driving a small quantity of air into the gaspipes and a corresponding quantity of gas into the atmosphere, because this would in no case be sufiicient in amount to cause any inconvenience, and in practice the traps will be of suflicient depth and size to prevent the ejection of the liquid therefrom by ordinary lungs. The instant the pressure is removed the liquid in all the traps resumes its level as nearly as the normal pressure of the gas will permit, the excess of air within the pipe escaping through the whistle or mouth-piece V, and air entering through the whistle W to take the place of that which was ejected through the same. By theuse of the modification shown in Fig. 2 the movement of the liquid in the trap X is made to act through afloat on a It is no objection v to the apparatus that a blast continued long fine the gas therein,while permitting the pascation with the trap, but separated from the bell-hammer, and it is evident that a person desiring to call another may produce the necessary motion of the gas in the pipe by a sudden depression of the float at his own station. When one speaks at N, Fig. 1, the words are conveyed to N, and to every other aperture similarly covered with a vibrating membrane in all the gas-pipes, so that one listening at N will hear what is said at N, and, vice versa, one at N will hear what is said at N.

Having thus described my invention, the following is what I; claim as new therein and desire to secure by Letters Patent:

1. The combination of the gas-pipes of a building, suitable flexible or movable pipes connected therewith, and flexible membranes stretched or applied over suitable apertures in said flexible or movable pipes, so as to consage of sound-waves.

2. The combination of a gascontaining pipe, a vibrating membrane in contact with the contained gas, a liquid trap connected with the gas-pipe, and a suitable sounder in communigas by the liquid in said trap.

3. In a gas-telephone, aliquid receptacle or trap and a signaling device in communication therewith, operated by impulses applied through the medium of the liquid in the trap, 5-

substantially as set forth.

JAS. HARRIS ROGERS.

. Witnesses: v

D. P. CowL, GEO. R. BYINGTON. 

